🔗 Share this article

An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, going to the identical church and placing their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to keep. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never both, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is expected to